Tic-Toc, Tic-Toc

I started thinking and planning my blog entry in my head tonight while driving home and several ideas presented themselves at once. Somehow the chain of illogical reasoning took me from several words I wanted to look up in my friend Websters to the literary and verbal tics that I employ/suffer. I have a fondness for writing the word 'particularly.' It is never particularly improperly used, is often particularly relevant, but is also decidedly unnecessary. One of my college professors pointed out how often it appeared in an essay I wrote and I think removing them all not only didn't change the flow or understanding of the paper in any negative way, it made the paper more understandable and even brought the paper down a page.


My verbal tics are many, but the one I'm really struggling with now is : do you know what I mean? E pointed it out to me and I can not only not stop saying, but I'm conscious of it now and have now begun a whole chain of toc's to follow that tic. Do you know what I mean? Damn, I said it again. Did you hear me say it again? I can't believe I said it again. I'm really going to try not to say that anymore, because it's really annoying....Do you know what I mean?


I don't know (what I mean) if it was worth getting pointed out or not, because now I'm just as aware, but seemingly unable to stop myself.